My Bucket List

This is my entry in the Just Ask Bucket List Getaway Giveaway. Just Ask offers a breast and ovarian cancer screening and is encouraging people to share 15 things that I want to enjoy in my lifetime as a reminder to be aware of my health. Want to enter? Head over to TodaysMama.com to get the details.

1. Go to a fair/festival and eat any and everything I want without regard to cost or calories.
2. Be a mother.
3. Host Saturday Night Live.
4. Go to Hershey, PA and take a chocolate spa bath.
5. Swim with dolphins.
6. See Phantom of the Opera, Chicago, Sweeney Todd, and My Fair Lady on Broadway.
7. Visit Knott's Berry Farm.
8. Go to Greece.
9. Go on an Alaskan whale watching cruise.
10. Be the guest of honor at a surprise party.
11. Never miss an opportunity to tell someone I love them.
12. Attend a black-tie mandatory event.
13. Reupholster a chair.
14. Go to Maine, purchase lobsters from the docks, and cook them myself.
15. Retire to a beachfront house on a lazy island.

Fingerprints

 

My recent thrift store habit is to look for frames. Of all styles and sizes. When I found these two frames (for fifty cents each!) I knew I had a 'Mr. and Mrs.' project on my hands. A quick spray paint job and they were set.

Because my boss allowed me to take graphic design classes this year, Photoshop has been my not-so-secret boyfriend. The inspiration of this project was to do something meaningful to my hubby and I, but not corny.

First, I took our fingerprints by coloring on a piece of paper with a #2 pencil and rubbing our wedding ring fingers in it. I wrapped a piece of tape around our fingers, then gently removed it. I took that tape and pressed it onto a plain white piece of paper, then scanned it onto my computer.

If you don't know Photoshop, skip this paragraph (trust me, I would).  I loaded each of our fingerprints into Photoshop, then used a combination of the Quick Selection tool and the Magic wand tools to select all the white areas, or the areas that weren't part of the prints. Then I deleted that selection, and selected the remaining area, which was the actual print. I pasted it into a new layer, and filled it with black. Then I switched to the background layer and filled it with white.

I found this quote online: "Once someone touches your heart, the fingerprints will last forever." I put the first half of the quote on my husband's print, and the second half on mine. Done! (Well, it'll be officially done with it gets me on Crafting with the Stars!) ;)

Father's Day Present

"We should make my dad a barn quilt!" was the exclamation I bombed my husband (D) with exactly eight days before Father's Day. Why it hadn't occurred to me before, who knows. Barn quilts are all the rage around here right now and driving 20 minutes in any direction you will probably see about five.

D and I quickly decided this was not a project we could surprise my dad with. This was no necktie or fishing lure that could be added to the stash and never looked at again. This was a moderately expensive, time consuming project. (Go big or don't bother, right?) My dad told us the relative height on the barn and we decided an 8'x8' barn quilt would be best. D and I picked the pattern, and let my parents okay it and decide on colors.

We decided on the largest pattern pictured above, with orange, yellow, and blue.

Do you have any idea how big 8ft is? We used two 4'x8' pieces of plywood, and had each cut in half for ease of transport/design. The pieces were still huge at 4'x4', and much too heavy for my chicken arms to maneuver alone.

Please keep in mind that when a big project comes up, I absolutely forgo things like cleaning (or pretending to have a clean house just for pictures). Also, we live in about an 1100 town house apartment, so there's not a whole lot of room to move things around when four 4ft squares take over. It is all about the PROJECT, people!

Everything translates more clearly in my head when I can see things step by step. For this project, I graphed out an 8'x8' square, then realized the simplicity of painting each quarter. I penciled in a dot grid each piece of plywood, and was able to paint lines by lining them up on the grid. The final result looks like the bottom left design.

Prime time.

Painting the first design. If you look just under my right arm, you'll see where I had already messed up. First and only big mistake, I'm happy to say.

For a straight edge, I used the 1"x3"s we bought to frame the back.

Kept the pattern closeby at ALL times.

One coat down, one to go!

We only had a week to do complete this, because I wanted to get it done by Father's Day. And we managed to squeeze it out in just enough time. It was dry enough that we took it over to my parent's house and D framed it up. It was not, however, dry enough that they were able to get it hung on the barn. The paint label said it needed to dry 48 hours before being exposed to the elements. Stay tuned for the barn hanging pictures.The hanging won't happen until this weekend, but I plan on being glued to the camera for all the action.

Why Hello There!

What started as the dream of two friends is now available in blog form. We are two crafty, overexcitable Southern Belles who often are the only two people in the room laughing at a joke no one else finds funny. This blog is going to burst at the seams with tips and tutorials, and will serve as our online brag book for our projects. We love to sew, paint, and dream up huge projects to watch them come to fruition. If you need anything from a wreath to a barn quilt, we are the girls for the job. Stick around! We're starting off with a bang. :)